who reads romances

Probably I have lost my male readers by now and maybe a lot of the females. I do understand romance novels have a bad rap, probably about the equivalent of soap operas. Who reads them? Maybe women a lot like I was when I did.

My first romances (to read that is) came when I was in the end of grade school and began checking out from the library some of those sweet stories like Paintbox Summer by Betty Cavanna (I had forgotten the author's name but still remembered that title which led to the author).

Those books were pretty much like the little films of the time on the Mickey Mouse Club with Spin, Marty and Annette (if you aren't in your sixties at least, you probably have no idea who they were). The stories were sweet. Sex, drugs, and alcohol rarely intruded in the lives of those teens; or if they did, they were shown as negative. I was living a life a lot like those books; so they suited me for a few years.

Then in my early teens came the westerns which really were my first romance reads of an adult sort. I was as interested then in the western life as the romantic parts. The women in his stories were often learning to live a western life and toughen up. The men they were attracted to were as tough as the land.

From this came more grown up fare by authors like Frank Yerby and Ernest Hemingway (yes, he did write stories with romance even though it usually didn't end well). The romances I read during that period had history as more important than the romantic parts, and the endings might or might not have been happy.

It wasn't until I was married and I think had my first baby that I actually read my first romance novels of the bodice ripper sort which had only recently come into popularity with authors like Rosemary Rogers, and I might add were considered wicked back then. For me, those books were quite enlightening, and I went for enlightenment in a big way for awhile.

Then I realized I didn't like any where rape was romanticized or glorified which means even by the hero. For awhile I still read romances but less frequently and a bit more carefully chosen; until, boom, I lost interest in all of them.

So what do romance novels give to women like I was and those who read the romances today, the women I'd like to interest in reading mine? In the sociology studies I have seen, they are frequently read by women with high stress jobs, sound marriages, families, and a lot of pressure. The books aren't a substitute for reality but just provide a break from it.

If someone thought they are generally read by lonely spinsters at home waiting for their Prince Charming, the studies say they are not. They mostly are read by women with very active lives, most frequently satisfactorily married. They are very unlikely to have a hero like those in the books and they wouldn't want him. They are pretty satisfied with what they do have. They aren't plotting when they will run off for their dream. Like men's Tom Clancy novels, it's just a break to travel into someone else's life for a few hours where it's exciting.

For women, it's a bit like the Barbie dolls that some feminists had a fit little girls were being ruined for life if they played with them. It doesn't make those girls want to have a figure like Barbie. She just represents glamor, imagination and play. I think that's a lot of what the romance books represent-- a break from reality and not in a bad way.

Now why I have lost interest in them, well that I cannot say. I might though get interested again if the stories changed to more like the ones I am writing ;)